The Beltway Buzz™ is a weekly update summarizing labor and employment news from inside the Beltway and clarifying how what’s happening in Washington, D.C., could impact your business.
Senate Continues Work on “Big Beautiful Bill.” Republicans in the U.S. Senate continued to move forward this week with their version of the “Big Beautiful Bill.” They face significant—and complicated—procedural and political hurdles if they are to meet their goal of advancing a bill to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4. Republican leaders are expected to bring the bill to the floor next week and begin the lengthy “vote-a-rama” amendment process. As of now, the Senate bill—just like the version in the U.S. House of Representatives—includes provisions to limit taxes on income earned via tips or while working overtime.
Trump Administration Supports PLAs. On June 12, 2025, Russell T. Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, issued a memorandum of the administration’s policy on project labor agreements (PLAs). Director Vought writes, “For clarity, the Trump Administration supports the use of PLAs when those agreements are practicable and cost effective, and blanket deviations prohibiting the use of PLAs are precluded.” The memorandum further notes that President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14063, which requires the use of project labor agreements on federal construction projects valued at $35 million or more, remains in effect. However, the memorandum clarifies that an exception to this requirement would apply where there is only one bid on a project or where there are two or more bids “but prices are expected to be higher than the government’s budget by more than 10 percent due to the PLA requirement.” The memo is further evidence of the administration’s willingness to pursue policies favored by organized labor.
EEOC, DOL Nominees on the Move. On June 18, 2025, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) held a hearing on the nominations of Andrea Lucas to be a member (for a second term) of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Jonathan Berry to be solicitor of labor, and Andrew Rogers to be administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division. Republican senators tended to focus their questions on the role DOL can play in addressing human trafficking, unlawful child labor, and anti-American national origin discrimination cases at the EEOC. Democrats, on the other hand, focused on staffing cuts at DOL and sought pledges from Berry and Rogers to enforce laws such as the Davis-Bacon Act. But most Democrats directed their question to Lucas, probing her for her thoughts on the independent nature of the Commission (she stated that the EEOC is an executive branch agency operating under the direction of the president), questioning her role in EEOC litigation decisions and her vote against the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act’s (PWFA) implementing regulations. Under questioning, Lucas stated the Supreme Court of the United States’ 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgiaprotects individuals who are terminated from employment based on their transgender status.
Senator Introduces Bill Reinforcing President Trump’s “Gender Ideology” EO. Perhaps timed to coincide with Acting Chair Lucas’s appearance before the Senate HELP Committee, Senator Jim Banks (a member of the Committee) recently introduced the Restoring Biological Truth to the Workplace Act. The bill would amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to make it unlawful for an employer to take action against an employee who “engages in covered expression, that describes, asserts, or reinforces the binary or biological nature of sex” or because “an employee requests or uses a single-sex area that is a bathroom, changing area, or other area where physical privacy is desirable.” The bill comes against the backdrop of President Trump’s January 20, 2025, executive order, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
State Department Sets Guidelines for Student Visa Social Media Vetting. Several weeks after U.S. consulates abroad hit the pause button on student visa interviews, the State Department has reportedly followed up with instructions on how officials should be vetting student visa applicants’ online footprints. Specifically, the State Department is ordering consulates to look for “any indications of hostility towards the citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles of the United States” and/or “advocacy for, aid or support for foreign terrorists and other threats to U.S. national security.” According to media reports, evidence of these activities is not automatically disqualifying, but would prompt additional scrutiny.
Remembering Alice Robertson. On June 20, 1921, Representative Alice Robertson, a Republican from Oklahoma, became the first woman to preside over the U.S. House of Representatives. Born to Presbyterian missionaries in the Creek Nation Indian Territory (in current Oklahoma) in 1854, Robertson graduated from Elmira College in Elmira, New York, before beginning her career in public service at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. After Robertson returned to Oklahoma, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed her postmaster of Muskogee, Oklahoma, where she served from 1905 to 1913. In 1920, Robertson defeated three-term incumbent U.S. Representative William Wirt Hastings to become the second woman to win a seat in Congress. During her one term in Congress (she lost to Hastings in a 1922 rematch), Robertson served on the Committee on Indian Affairs, where she introduced a failed bill that would have reimbursed Cherokee descendants who were forcibly removed to Oklahoma. Robertson’s history-making moment of presiding over a session of the House of Representatives came during a vote to provide funding for a U.S. delegation to Peru.